Archive - Jan 2015

Earlier this month, Target announced it would close all of its 133 stores in Canada, laying off the 17,600 employees north of the border. As CBC reports, Target's "employee trust" package for its Canadian workers, announced last week, amounts to around $56 million, providing each worker with 16 weeks of pay. But - what is perhaps more stunning is that, depending on who’s doing the calculation, the golden handshake "walk-away" package handed to ex-CEO Gregg Steinhafel last May is in roughly the same ballpark at around $61 million, including severance of $15.9 million. It appears underperforming is the new killing it...

More than six years after the last recession, deflation remains an imminent threat. The continued hope is that the next round of interventions will be the one that finally sparks the inflationary pressures needed to jump start the engine of economic recovery. Unfortunately, that has yet to be the case, and the rate of diminishing returns from each program continue to increase. The collapse in commodity prices, interest rates and the surge in dollar are all clear signs that money is seeking "safety" over "risk." Maybe you should be asking yourself what it is that they know that you don't? The answer could be extremely important.

Head of International Police Agency:  Arming Citizens May Be the Best Way to Stop Terrorists

"Whatever it takes" appears to have 'worked' to crash the currency of the Eurozone... but - unlike the Keynesian 'exports-are-awesome' textbook plan of competitive currency devaluationists (just ask Japan) - economic growth expectations continue to collapse... Perhaps it's time to say "make it stop" before all central bank credibility is entirely destroyed...

Government has NEVER accepted the economy or free markets. They assume they have the ability and the right to manipulate society. They have failed each and every time. They cannot just recognize the natural order of things driven by human nature (character). They constantly work against the business cycle and attempt to change what cannot be changed. Therein, they are engaging in a perpetual war they can never win.

Worried about the honesty of your drug mule? Concerned that your smugglers will demand higher and higher minimum wage? There's a drone for that. Once again technology has enabled 'progress' as AP reports police in a Mexican border city said Wednesday that a drone overloaded with illicit methamphetamine crashed into a supermarket parking lot. As AVWeb notes, drones carrying illegal drugs and contraband have been among the creative ideas used by smugglers, and crashes do happen from loss of control or perhaps weight-and-balance problems. Brings a whole new meaning to 'Breaking Bad'.

What is going on in Europe? Nothing short of the biggest multiple expansion episode in history. As SocGen calculated two days ago "the reported P/E multiple on Eurozone equities has risen from 11.5x to 18.7x today – a multiple expansion of over 60% in 30 months – and now stands at a premium to both the rest of Europe and RoW."  And now, with today's latest surge in the Eurostoxx, the multiple has hit what may well be a record 19x, pushing the expansion well into the 60% range over the past two and a half years, making Europe the most expensive market on a PE-multiple basis in the entire world.

"The potential amount of QE needed is €2-3 trillion! Hence for inflation to reach close to a 2.0% threshold medium term, the potential amount of asset purchases needed is €2-3tn, not a mere €1tn. Should the ECB target such an expansion of its balance sheet, it would have to ease some conditions on its bond purchases (liquidity rule, quality...) or contemplate other asset classes- equity stocks, Real Estate Investment Trust-(REIT), Exchange-traded fund (ETF)...- as the BoJ, previously."

Remember when just a few short hours ago, the ECB's Mario Draghi said that under no circumstances should the ECB's historic launch of QE be taken by anyone as a substitute for legitimate fiscal and other labor reform: as in the one thing the continent that has youth unemployment higher than 50% in various nations truly needs, instead of a Dax at record highs? Well, we are happy to report that just hours after the launch of QE, French trade unions and employer groups failed to reach agreement in a final bid to spur job creation in a moribund market by simplifying rules on worker representation in firms, the government and unions said.

Fun-durr-mentals...

Are you an "us" or a "them"?

Hilsenrath claims a little birdie (Fed insider) told him that rates will be raised later this year. We expect the Fed is just jerking him around. There is nothing fundamentally or otherwise to suggest rates will move up. We're not sure if Hilsenrath is part of the game or just a gullible fool who is being used to keep the market off balance. Why would the Fed want the market off balance? The Fed does so intentionally because theory suggests such a strategy will improve the effectiveness of monetary policy. Regardless of what the Fed says, the reality is that interest rates are not moving up anytime soon. Here's why...

With almost perfect comedic timing, Bloomberg unleashed the mainstream media's Draghi-confirming raison d'etre for QE... explaining why - shock horror - deflation is bad for you. No matter that the QE efforts of The Fed (and BoJ) entirely (totally and utterly) failed to spark any increase in inflation expectations, we must try try try again. However, despite the exuberant disgruntlement with deflation that Bloomberg offers, Portuguese economy minister Guindos had something 'odd' to say this morning: "European deflation is positive." We are sure he will issue some clarifying statement soon enough walking back such a dangerous and anti-authority comment.

"Davos Man... derives most of his income, directly or indirectly, from state patronage. Davos is a place where you see, in Marxist terms, is a gang of rentiers coming together to devise new means to live off the sweat of the workers... It’s like an Ayn Rand novel, where lobbyists reach cosy arrangements with each other in elliptical language."